Retain My Team with Ronda Robinson

“The research says that having empathy and authenticity really sets apart legendary leaders from average ones, even in a high IQ talent pool,” shares Ronda Robinson, CPTD. Ronda has over 20 years of experience working in the corporate talent development space. Today, she brings her expertise to her business, RetainMyTeam.Com, a employee retention platform that helps companies reduce turnover and optimize the employees they retain.

The number one expectation of leaders today is to relate to their employees, which requires a large degree of authenticity and empathy. As leaders climb the ranks, they tend to lose their connection to other employees and so maintaining that relationship is something that must be purposefully done. Businesses tend to think a lot about strategies for various avenues of their company, but often forget to consider a talent strategy as well. Talent strategy ensures that you are putting the right people into the right roles to maximize productivity and improve retention. Many tools exist to help companies determine which people are best for each role, such as behavioral analysis and productivity metrics.

For the majority of time, people have been working specifically to secure security and the most basic needs like shelter and food. Later on people began working toward quality of life and being able to afford nice things. Nowadays, people have evolved one step further, to seek work that fulfills their need for social stimulation, psychological safety, and passion. In order to attract and retain employees who are looking for that fulfillment of social needs, leaders need to really work to be as authentic and empathetic as possible while also taking care to select the right people for each role.

• “The research says that having empathy and authenticity really sets apart legendary leaders from average ones, even in a high IQ talent pool.” (3:51-4:01 | Ronda)
• “Leaders need to be very purposeful about staying connected. It’s not going to happen organically. There's something in your brain, that as you become a higher and higher leader of the tribe, you become less and less connected to the people. So it takes effort and purpose to do that.” (6:01-6:16 | Ronda)
• “Part of the behavioral neuroscience is appealing toward those dopamine rushes, that thank you button that's in your own head, in order to form new mindsets and get people to want to do these things.” (9:22-9:35 | Ronda)
• “We have evolved to now where we can look to social needs, and that's a great thing. Work now becomes not as necessary, yes, it's fundamentally necessary. But now we need that social stimulation to satisfy our hierarchy of needs. So that's how I look at it today . It's our responsibility to meet those needs, because that's where we're at as a civilization.” (10:55-11:20 | Ronda)
• “You've got to have the right people in the right role aligned with the business goals in order to really maximize your productivity.” (19:02-19:09 | Ronda)
• “Every business problem is a people problem. And it's the people-problems that keep leaders up at night. But they don't have anywhere to delegate to people-problems. HR can only do so much and it shouldn't fall on their shoulders. But with Retain My Team, we try to be that group that you can delegate your people-problems to.” (24:59-25:16 | Ronda)
• “At this time of year, people are starting to look ahead to 2023. They're really looking at their marketing strategy, their business strategy, their operations and manufacturing their budgets. And so now is the time to add a swimlane for talent strategy in there. There's never been a more important time in the US workforce, in the global workforce, to actually pay more attention, be more purposeful about how you are managing and addressing the people who do the work.” (37:51-38:24 | Ronda)